Sunday, December 03, 2017

Aden Calls for Independence As Yemen's War Rages On
By ITV News Correspondent Neil Connery

Fifty years since the insurgence in Aden in Yemen came to its violent end, thousands have gathered in the port city to mark independence day.

Yet as war rages in the Middle Eastern country, the day was only partly a celebration, it was also a demonstration.

Thousands gathered to mark independence.

Rather than flying Yemen's flag, it was the separatist flag that flew over the massed demonstrators as they called for the south of the country to break away from the north.

Yemen is in the grip of a two-and-a-half-year-old war which has seen more than 10,000 people die as a result of fighting, hunger and disease, as Saudi Arabian-backed Government forces tackle Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.

A third side is now emerging in the war, with extremists taking advantage of the situation.

As the stalemate of the war continues, combined with airstrikes and blockades on imports, seven million people in a country of 20 million are on the brink of famine.

Yemen is the poorest country in the Arab world.

Yemen is already in the midst of the largest cholera outbreak in recorded history, and now it's having to confront diphtheria. as

The United Nations has described Yemen as the world's largest humanitarian crisis, and as the calls for separatism continue, peace for the Arab world's poorest country has never seemed further away.

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